CSV guide
Convert a Semicolon-Delimited CSV to Comma-Delimited CSV
Some regional spreadsheet settings and business systems export CSV records with semicolons instead of commas. Converting the delimiter requires parsing the records first: punctuation inside quoted fields is data, not a separator to replace blindly.
Convert the CSV delimiterStep by step
- Open the source file and confirm that the detected delimiter is semicolon.
- Review the header and a few rows, especially fields containing commas, semicolons, quotes or line breaks.
- Choose comma as the export delimiter and download the repaired CSV.
- Open or import the new file in the destination system and confirm that the column layout is unchanged.
Check the result
- The source and exported files should report the same data-row and column counts.
- Quoted punctuation and multiline values should remain in the same cells after conversion.
- Test the result in the actual importer because some regional Excel configurations still expect semicolons.
Common pitfalls
- Replacing every semicolon with a comma can alter legitimate text inside quoted fields.
- Decimal commas do not automatically mean that commas are the file delimiter.
- Changing a regional system setting affects other applications and is unnecessary for a one-file conversion.
Try the example on this page
Choose Try sample to load this guide’s synthetic data. Adjust the settings, inspect the result and export it here. You can also choose your own file for local processing.
Open a data file to start
The parser runs off the main thread. Once loaded, you can search, sort, validate, repair and export without an account.
Original samples: semicolon.csv
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